THE jury in the alleged Curtis Warren drugs plot were told they had to “be sure” of guilt before they convict.

The final defence closing speeches were made to St Helier Royal Court yesterday.

The jury of seven men and five women has sat through 11 days of evidence and submissions and is set to go out to consider their verdicts next week.

Yesterday, Michael Preston, advocate for one of Warren’s five co-accused, Oliver Lucas, said the jury could not convict because they had not been “shown the full picture”.

The court has already heard Jersey police lied to international colleagues after they were denied permission to bug a car, driven by Warren’s “right-hand man” John Welsh from France to Holland to do the alleged deal.

Judge Sir Richard Tucker described their conduct as “reprehensible” and “unlawful”, but the defence say no senior officer has been called to the witness stand to explain the behaviour.

Mr Preston said: “The Crown have shown you part of the picture.

“That is because the rest of the picture makes them very uncomfortable.

“You have witnessed some shocking admissions that the Crown did not want to tell you. They wanted to deprive you of these things.

“It might be that you simply cannot be sure of anything.

“You cannot just sit back and say ‘it looks suspicious so let’s convict’.

“It is far too important to do that.

“It is not about possibilities or probabilities, it is about you being sure [of the defendants’ guilt].”

The allegation by the Crown is that Welsh and four other local men were set to do a deal in Amsterdam that would have seen 180kg of cannabis driven across continental Europe to the French coast and then sprinted back to Jersey by speedboat.

It is alleged Warren set the deal up using his “associates” and was using it was a “little starter”.

The prosecution allege he was “the man pulling the strings”.

Warren, who gave a Jersey address of Garden Lane, St Helier, to the court; Welsh, of Somerset Place; and James O'Brien, 45, of Tunnel Street, both St Helier, along with local men Paul Hunt, 27, Jason Woodward, 22, and Oliver Lucas, 23, all deny the charge of conspiracy to import drugs into Jersey.